Monday, April 06, 2015

The US demands $228,059.54 in compensation from Germany for the sinking of the William P. Frye (a ship, not the actual United States senator) in January.

Jess Willard knocks out Jack Johnson in the 26th round. Billy Sunday says “Every white man should be happy.” The US has sent secret service agents to Havana to try to arrest Johnson.

The US’s letters of protest to Britain and Germany over their respective naval blockades of each other are made public. Basically, the US insists on a right to sell stuff to belligerent countries, which should be respected by both sides, because making money is more important than their silly little spat.

Germany officially denies that the crew of the U-28 laughed as passengers from the Falaba drowned. It also blames merchant ships like the Falaba for attacking innocent U-boats, claiming that merchants are now under orders to ram U-boats, which are just delicate things so torpedoing ships is really just self-defense.

Dudley Field Malone, Collector of the Port of New York, says there is a widespread conspiracy to violate Wilson’s neutrality proclamation by tugboats supplying British warships beyond the 3-mile limit with fuel and food. Malone has been darting up and down the New York and New Jersey docks for weeks in a torpedo boat investigating and having a fine old time.

The US Commission on Industrial Relations is looking into the working conditions of sleeping car porters and conductors. The general manager of the Pullman Company, L.S. Hungerford – which is exactly the name the general manager of the Pullman Company would have in a 1930s movie – is asked whether $27.50 a month is really enough pay for a porter. “We can get all the men we want at that rate,” the capitalist pig replied. Out of that (plus tips), the porters have to buy their uniforms in their first year of service (a mere $36.50) and their own shoe polish, and they’re fined when passengers steal the linens. And their work day seems to start at 3 a.m. and end at 11 or 12 at night.

A Capt. Edouard Anselme Jean Herail of the 11th Regiment of French Hussars is about to undergo court-martial. Last November, his overly devoted wife joined him where he was stationed. His superiors ordered him to get his wife to go back to Paris. She refused, and he faced being disciplined, so naturally he shot her. Spoiler alert: he will be acquitted.